Park Members Who Failed To Scoop Dog’s Poop Wanted At Indiana Dog Park

If you live in Carmel, Indiana, and you and your dog frequent Carmel’s Central Bark Park, make sure that you pick up your dog’s poop. The facility now uses PooPrints to find out who isn’t scooping their dog’s poop at the park.

The park has experienced a rash of dog waste that isn’t picked up by dog owners who use the facility. The maintenance director of the park (and surely those who follow the park rules) want the practice to end and are taking action, according to RTV 6 ABC.

“We work really hard to keep the turf at a high quality,” Carmel Parks and Recreation Maintenance Director Michael Allen told the news outlet. “We irrigate this area and do a lot to maintain it, so we’re trying to have the best bark park around.”

The members-only park costs $10 a month, is not yet a year old and requires that members submit their dogs for DNA testing (at a cost of $40, covered in the application fee) prior to being let into the park. Five members have recently failed to pick up after their dogs, even though doggie bags are widely available throughout the gated park, so Allen sent the poop to BioPet Vet Lab, whose PooPrints DNA test was used to conduct DNA analysis of the dog poop left behind.

“It can have a negative effect on other people’s experiences, as well as the downstream water,” Allen told RTV 6 about people not scooping their dog’s poop.

The DNA test is in use in more than 1,000 areas in the country, virtually anywhere there have been complaints about dog waste and where doggie DNA is required, such as in bark parks and certain dog-friendly apartment complexes.